Asperger's and Aging

[Nervous Rex]

What is strange for me is how autistic facets come and go with age.

I used to have a very strong compulsion to read any text I could see. If there were books, newspapers, signs, ... anything with print on it, I had to read it before I could do anything else. People often accused me of being rude and ignoring them because I was reading stuff. Now, I am curious about what something says, but I can choose to ignore it if there's something more important going on.

I used to hyper-focus on something, to the point that I was not even aware of my surroundings or didn't know that someone was talking to me. Now I can't even if I want to. I miss that ability - I feel like I'm the opposite now, continually unfocused and jumping from one thing to another.

I didn't used to be afraid of heights or dislike crowds. Now I can't stand either one. I used to think that being in crowded environments made me irritable because I had no patience for slow, stupid people. Now I know that it just gives me anxiety.

Slowly (oh soooo slowly!) becoming self aware has helped a lot. Instead of inadvertently breaking pens, pencils, or other stuff because I had to stim, I am aware of my need to stim and I channel it into less destructive and more subtle, less noticeable things.

Socially is where things have gotten so much better. Most of it is due to experience - every social blunder I made became a rule in my list of rules for how-to-get-about-in-society. Now I can make it through most social situations fairly well. I also have less of a need to be noticed and validated by others, so I don't feel like I have to go to social things if I don't want to. I also don't feel bad leaving a social setting when I need to recharge.

 

[Greening]

I am curious as to others’ opinions concerning Asperger’s and aging in relationship to it getting worse or improving.

I have/had (we’ve not spoken in a while) a friend that I’ve known almost fifty years, who’s obviously on the spectrum, which seems to have gotten worse as far as the manifestations of his AS goes.

As a kid he was always odd. We just thought he was like an absent-minded professor that was incredibly smart who shared the same interests as us, but now as an adult, a senior adult now, the manifestations are quite annoying. He gives no thought to what he says or how he says it and then refuses to understand when it is pointed out to him.

On the other hand, in my personal life, I have not noticed it getting worse but have managed to learn how to control what some consider offensive manifestations. It has been a struggle to train myself to fit into an NT world in order to get along.

My friend and I are the same age. Intellectually, he makes me look like the village idiot. However, I learned how to be empathetic, how to read people to a degree, and how to get along without coming across as a complete jerk, which he has become.

A common thing for those on the spectrum is an obsession for something; and obsession to the point that it becomes an annoyance to others. I learned that the entire world does not like Harley Davidson, nor do they want to hear the history of HD. My friend is obsessed with RC cars. He has built at least 250 that I know of. Every conversation, email, and even text focuses only on RC cars, the history of RC cars, prominent figures in the RC world, etc. Either that or his dog. I’ll not mention the dog because that would take up too much space.

So, what is your opinion on AS and aging? Does it get worse or do some Aspies stop trying to fit into the NT world?

I think the idea of working with concepts like autism "getting worse" or "getting better" with age is a dangerous, and simply a wrong, path to go. It indicates almost by default that an autistic person, like me, can either "improve" or "fall behind" somehow, and in that way being autistic is then always the most wrong way to be. I am 49 now. I got diagnosed when I was 48, so it is only a little more than a year ago, that I could start looking at my life from this new perspective, and it explained a lot. I understood some struggles, that cannot be explained in any other way. At the moment I am in a phase of my life, where I really spend a lot of time alone, and I have chosen to do so. I simply thrive with being a loner for maybe 95 % of the time these days. I have tried different "social groups" in so called "real life" but they were not for me. I did not find anyone, with whom I became friends with. Instead I literally had the experience of some people showing a huge disinterest, whenever I started talking about something that truly interests me, instead of me mimicking "the usual way of chatting with people". I was, by the way, very popular because I am a good listener, who actually tries to hear what others say and respond to them. It is, however, not my job to do so, if other people just leave the table, when I start to share something authentic. When it feels like a job to "be social", it has nothing to do with really being social, because it is a one way "communication". You receive stuff from someone who then disappears. In the worst cases it feels like being used as a garbage bin.

Thankfully, you can be lucky to meet someone, like I have now, who can actually see you, hear you and have a genuine interest in YOU. To be stubborn and look for that, until it actually happens, is a way of choosing yourself, whether you are autistic or not, and not settle for anything less. A real friendship or maybe a real, romantic relationship is a real, invaluable, gift, instead of some pseudo-comrades holding you down, so they can get up, through some dysfunctional patterns (often including drugs of all sorts by the way) which is, and always will be, a burden. Until you decide to leave and choose yourself, love yourself, unconditionally.

 

[Crossbreed]

I do not apologize for my autism, but I am prepared to apologize for saying things without considering their possible offending effects.

From real life:
Me: So, when are you due...?
Her: I am not pregnant.

Seeing a nurse in her civvies,
Me: I am not used to seeing you with your clothes on...

Fictional example:
A woman walks into an already well-mixed party.
Me: (aloud) Finally, a pretty one...!

Being careful to avoid such faux pas is not an apology for autism, and I do not consider it to be masking.

 

[Rodafina]

If the patterns I've noticed persist for me, then I expect some things to get more difficult, some things to get easier, and some to stay the same. Learning about autism and embracing sobriety gave me a brand new chance at life after already having lived for 40 years. I expect that my gratitude for knowing about autism and how my brain actually functions (and wanting to learn more about that) will persist until my last breath. I unknowingly spent the first 40 years of my life resisting and fighting my autistic brain and I intend to spend the next 40 years yielding to it and working with it rather than against it. I don't expect old age to be a walk in the park, per se, but neither do I expect a continued battle through hell. I will use the information that Living has given me and adapt, and never forget that among the hardships there are also so many things to appreciate and be grateful for.

 

[marc_101]

I think that for most people getting older comes with acceptance of who we are. I used to always think about the future and how I would change the world. Now I think more about the past and most definitely I'm not going to change the world.

Probably social circumstances dictate if ASD gets worse or better (by worse and better, I mean worse and better for me, not others). ASD makes interactions with others harder. If you are isolated, then 1) you are yourself and 2) you lose practice interacting with people. A trait of ASD is that interactions do not come naturally.

The pandemic for me was like an experiment. I went from going to work every day to not seeing anybody. I still mostly work from home. That led me to the realization that I'm always pretending to be somebody else when interacting with people. Aging can imply isolation, so I can see how it could get worse in terms of the ability to interact with others.

But I'll force myself to be optimistic. I'll let people close to me know that my brain works a little different... for good and bad, mostly good.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

I don't think AS to get worse. I'm not sure getting worse or better is the way to see it. That sounds like an NT perspective, because they dislike so much of what is natural to us. Rather, it's a question of being more or less like ourselves.

The more we act against ourselves, the more stress, and more struggle, consequently. This will certainly affect functioning. Of course, we have to adapt, at least in some ways, but I think we can live good, long lives. Part of that is being aware of yourself and your needs.

My functioning progressively decreased in my 20s and 30s. This is due to a lot of masking and pushing myself. As I ease off in middle age, functioning is improved, and I can be myself again.

We are fed a lot of attitudes toward Autism which come from non-Autistic people. I think a key part of aging well is avoiding these mindsets. They're diminishing and biased.

Also: many of us would benefit from socializing and forming relationships with the right Autistic people. It's amazing how easy this is when we're not trying to be someone we're not. The idea of inherent deficits disappears pretty quickly, then.

 

[Kaz2012]

From personal experience I think yes. It's a combination of two things for me - less capacity to deal with things that set off shutdowns/meltdowns and I am exhausted from masking and trying to fit in all my life and just don't care any more what other people think. Especially NTs who never made an effort to understand me. Also I read somewhere that, for women at least, when you start going through peri-menopause and menopause Autism can get worse - some hormonal thing. Still functioning well and so on, but kinder to myself and not forcing myself to endure and tolerate things which are unbearable and more courage to just be myself.

 

[Human Avatar]

@Kaz2012
I am similar I have less tolerance for many things now . Things that I could let slide are making me have more meltdowns and shutdowns .

My experience in terms of measurement I am getting worse with everything that is around me.